The Daughter of Persephone
by Rose Elise
Summary: In Percy's point of view, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are going to recruit new half-bloods, Gretchen and Stephanie Meyers. But even after getting them to camp, the three have to embark on a special quest to find the answer to the simple question all of camp has been asking; who are these new demigods parents?
1. We Receive Help

We Receive Help

Grover, Annabeth and I were shocked. Why? Because, of what we had just learned. Let's backtrack.

"Okay. So the half-bloods are Gretchen and Stephanie Meyers," Grover said. Chiron had sent us on a mission to recruit half-bloods. Ever since the gods agreed to claim them by age 13, we've had to get them to Camp Half-Blood by age 13.

"What are they like?" Annabeth asks.

"From what Chiron told me, they're your typical future Harvard grads," Grover says sarcastically

"So they're 99.9% likely to be Athena's kids?" I ask. Annabeth stopped dead in her tracks, rolled her eyes and stared at me with that "you're so dumb" face I had grown quite accustomed to.

"Not all smart people are children of Athena. In early times, Zeus's kids were also smart. That's how he bore Athena. It isn't just Metis and Athena who's smart," Annabeth said.

"Anyway, I thinks that's the place," Grover said. He pointed to the back of a building that had just come into view.

"I never thought a middle school could be so big." This was no doubt the L. B. Johnson Texas School of the Arts.

"Well, it has to be big, because it's the best private school in Texas. There're more than 2,000 applications per grade each year, and only 200 of those are accepted," Annabeth said.

"And how do you know this?" I ask.

"I did my homework."

"Percy, I think you should call Blackjack, now that we know exactly where it is." Grover says.

I shout "Blackjack!" in my head and then tell Annabeth and Grover to wait here for him. But then, out of nowhere, a girl materializes in front of us. I uncap Riptide, but Annabeth already unsheathed her dagger and it's at this girl's throat. She has long, black hair and it shines a deep sapphire shade and she's taller than us and has ripped jeans on. She also has an unzipped black sweatshirt on with both her hands in the front pocket, a black t-shirt that says "Keep Calm and Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse. Her combat boots are so worn that it look like they are being held together with magic, which with no doubt I believe they are. Her face is very pale, but not artificial. Her eyes have, what Annabeth calls, a smoky eye, which is apparently when girls put on black, gray, and white eye shadow to make it look like smoke. Her hair is covering her left eye, but the other is black and has a glint of humor. A smile spreads across her blood-red lips and she brushes her hair away as she says "I wouldn't do that if I were you," to Annabeth.

Grover, Annabeth and I were shocked. Her left dull, silver eye reveals one thing.


	2. Our Friend Turns us into Cats

"Cassandra!" we shout in unison. Annabeth realizes she's still holding her knife, so she pulls back and mutters, "Sorry." I don't know who she's talking to, Cassandra or the desert beneath our feet. The back of Cassandra's hair near her neck changed from electric green to maroon. I ask about it and she says it changes with her mood. She must be moody, because it changes quite often. Now it's silver.

"Did Chiron send you to help us?" I asked.

"Nah, I just came here on my own free will," Cassandra replied. Being a daughter of Hecate, she didn't need much protection.

"Blackjack's having a bit of trouble. He just sent me a message telling me to tell you to help him," I say to her.

"I'll bring him to safety," Cassandra says. She closed her eyes and brought her hands up as if she was pulling something. The Mist came out of the ground like smoke and looked like a pearl, lustrous, shear curtain waving with the wind around her ankles. Cassandra opened her eyes. Her silver eye wasn't dull this time though; it was like a brilliant cut diamond, hinting at every color of the rainbow but glimmering whitish silver. She rounded her fingers and touched each fingertip to its twin, and all the Mist gathered inside her hands. Now it really resembled a pearl, but looked even more so like a gypsy's crystal ball due to the Mist moving like smoke.

"Stand behind me," she said. We were obliged to do so. Now the back of her hair was plum purple. She brought her hands high above her, flattened them, and painted an oval made of Mist.

"Wait for it. Three, two, one, now-" she said as Blackjack burst the portal. Bits of the Mist flew everywhere. Blackjack screeches to a halt, looks around confused, and then sees us behind him. Cassandra's eyes dull back to the color they originally were like a light flickering before a blackout.

"Yo, boss!" he says as he canters up to me.

"Hey, Black! What happened?" I say.

"I was flying over the eye of a small hurricane, being in Poseidon's territory, perfectly safe, but a lightning bolt strikes directly in the center of it. Not good," Blackjack says.

"Hey! Sorry if I confused you," Cassandra says.

"It's okay," Black says, nipping her on the ear.

Instinctively, she covers her ear and a look of panic crosses her face. Annabeth protectively escorts her to a huge, round boulder, conveniently 50 feet away.

Annabeth says to Grover, "Go get me some aloe vera."

"Hey! Vera's a _person_. Dryad rather," he says. A young girl, maybe nine years old, emerges. She shyly gives Annabeth the balm and then runs away. Annabeth takes a bobby pin out of her hair and pins Cassandra's hair up.

"Don't let anyone see!" panicked Cassandra twitters.

"I won't," replies a soothing Annabeth. She applies the aloe vera to her ear and covers it with a Band-Aid from her pocket first aid kit.

"Guys, we better keep moving," I say. I was a bit confused about the whole fuss with Cassie's cut, but honestly, I was worried about more important things then. What Blackjack had described something unheard of; and it wasn't good. It was probably the result of Zeus's and Poseidon's bickering; which, more often than not, results in a war, a godly banishment, or mortal/demigod casualties.

"C'mon, guys. We're almost there. We'll just get Gretchen and Stephanie and pray to the gods that we don't get killed by a mob of angry cheerleaders." I was trying to lighten the mood, but all I got was Grover's laughter, which was short lived due to Annabeth's "oh my gods not now" stare and Cassandra's confusion.

"Okay, guys. Let's go," said Annabeth said, mainly to Cassandra. We headed towards the school. Before we entered, Cassandra turned to us.

"Wait. We don't want another tragedy to occur, like the one that took place with Nico and Bianca." She was referring to Annabeth's capture.

"So, I'm going to disguise us." She walked over to Annabeth and placed her hand on her head. Immediately, Mist started pouring onto Annabeth, and as the Mist left the top of her head, nothing was under it. It was the same until it got right above her ankles, where gray fur appeared. The Mist revealed the cutest gray cat I've ever seen. She looked at me and let out a desperate "MEOW!" Cassandra just replied "it's okay." Grover looked at me and said, "Dude, she wants to let you know to not make fun of her."

"Okay, Wise Cat," I said, just before Cassandra placed her hand on my head. I got this weird feeling; like I was being placed down by a giant who kept filling helium in my body to see how long it would take until I floated away. All of the sudden, my vision got clearer, like I was putting on glasses that made my vision 20/10. The dark didn't look dark. If anything, the light was harder to see through.

"Oh my gods, why do I feel like this?" I asked Cassandra. But what she responded was in a different language.

"Percy, we're cats. We can't understand English anymore," Annabeth said.

"Well, Wise Cat, look at Grover." Grover was a tabby with brown and tan stripes. His eyes were glowing yellow, and he most closely resembled a deer in headlights. Cassandra was now an ebony-black cat with piercing yellow eyes. I realized that Annabeth was the only cat with eyes that weren't yellow. Even as a cat, I couldn't stop staring at her.

"Alright guys, let's go," Cassandra meowed. But then, a man came out of the building. "Hello, Sssson of Possssseidon," he said. "It'ssss been to long ssssssince we firsssst met."


	3. We Meet a Dragon

"W-what?!" I stutter. "I've never met you before."

"Oh, but you have. You are probably jussst fooled by my disssguise," Ladon answers.

"What is he talking about, Percy?" Annabeth inquires. Sometimes my girlfriend could be overprotective, but right now it was more comforting than annoying.

Cassandra waved her paw and we were human again.

"Ladon-," Cassandra says as if she's scolding a puppy.

"You ssstay out of thisss girl," Ladon shoots back, cutting her off.

"Don't make me-,"

"What? What will you do? You won't harm _me," _Ladon taunts. "Heracles isn't around. He is the only demigod who threatens my powers." Ladon's t's, p's, b's, and d's sounded forced, as if it were hard to say them.

"Well, you should feel threatened. The two best fighting demigods, one of them the son of one of the Big Three no less, the Lord of the Wild, and a daughter of Hecate should scare you very much." As I say this, my courage starts to wane. Each of his hundred heads could easily over power all of us.

"Enough ssmall talk, let'ss just get on with killing you," Ladon says, obviously bored. He raises his heads to pounce, but then I remembered. How Zoe risked her life for our quest. How _he _killed her.

Enraged, I raise Riptide, but before I can swing, Cassandra grabs my wrist and we disappear.


End file.
